A few times how often?
Tiscali are arseholes Page 3
2 maybe three depending on clients
I'm sure you've all missed me - and you've got Tiscali to thank for that.
Supposedly upgraded on Fiday - crashed by the evening.
Engineer came tonight and spent half an hour trying to sort it out - router problem somehow which they provided.
Half an hour after he went it crashed again.
I reset and it's staggering along now but it's only a matter of time.
Indian call centres are amazing. I had one guy who tried to engage me in conversation about "Dirty Dennis" in Eastenders. I tried to tell him that storyline finished 20 years ago but he'd already warmed to his subject and suddenly I was reliving Den handing Angie the divorce papers all over again. The guy then asked if he could call me by my first name, then asked what I did for a living. He then made wildly inaccurate assumptions about my salary and lifestyle, then gave me some completely unhelpful advice about completely re-wiring my phone system to get a better broadband signal.
Being British, I thanked him for his trouble and then shouted at the wife.
I really hate those foreign call centres. I appreciate that the staff are, in good faith, trying to be helpful, but they rarely know anything at all. On one memorable occasion a friend of mine was having problems with a new mobile phone, and got connected to an call centre in India when seeking help with it. He started asking about which buttons would open which menus to get to something (well, something like that anyway), and they said that they had never even seen a PICTURE of the phone in question, and were thanking HIM for his help in their understanding of it! Absolutely ridiculous. Of course, he was charged through the nose for the privilege.
Well I'm truly stuffed. Just switched from Freedom Broadband cos they are no more. Wasn't told that they were folding. Was pushed from pillar to post by Virgin until I told them to feck off and now waiting for Tiscali. Deep deep do-do. 
Little tip for Tiscali users, sometimes recogfiguring the MTU settings helps it run a bit smoother and look it up if you don't know what it is, I can't be bothered to explain. You have to go into your registery blah blah blah.
Little tip for Tiscali users, sometimes changing your ISP helps it run a bit smoother.
Quote: Aaron @ April 9 2008, 7:36 PM BSTLittle tip for Tiscali users, sometimes changing your ISP helps it run a bit smoother.
That's a much better fix.
I haven't had any problems with BT.
When we moved house about 10years ago we decided to go with Ionica who had a satelite based system.
The day we moved in they turned up and asked me where I wanted them to mount my satalite dish phone receiver. On the back of my house so it's f**k-ugliness isn't displayed on the street, says I. O, can't do that mate, won't get a signal, it'll have to go on the front.
20 minutes later he tells me that the blockwork under my render is soft as shit (and that's a quote) and it will have to go on the back where I'd asked for it in the first place.
F**kers went bust after a few months and served them right. Now they were shit.
Quote: Aaron @ April 9 2008, 7:36 PM BSTLittle tip for Tiscali users, sometimes changing your ISP helps it run a bit smoother.
Quote: Aaron @ April 9 2008, 7:36 PM BSTLittle tip for Tiscali users, sometimes changing your ISP helps it run a bit smoother.
Don't know why I'm laughing. I have no f**king idea what he's talking about!
It's going OK at the moment but the routr seems to have trouble picking up the signasls consistently.
This was the BBC
Call to prosecute BT for ad trial
BT conducted two "small scale" trials of the Phorm system
BT should face prosecution for its "illegal" trials of a controversial ad-serving technology, a leading computer security researcher has said.
Dr Richard Clayton at the University of Cambridge made his comments after reviewing a leaked BT internal report.
The document reveals details of a 2006 BT trial with the Phorm system, which matches adverts to users' web habits.
"It's against the law of the land," he told BBC News. "We must now expect to see a prosecution."
But BT plans to push ahead with a further trial of the technology later this summer, the BBC has learnt.
"We have not announced a date yet; we are still planning - it will be quite soon," a spokesperson said.
Revelations about earlier trials have prompted some customers to organise protests in London to coincide with BT's AGM on 16 July.
'Small test'
The company did not inform customers that they were part of the original tests in 2006 and 2007, although 30,000 subscribers were involved.
Nearly 19 million web pages were intercepted during the 2006 tests, according to the leaked report, posted to the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks.
This isn't how we expect ISPs to treat their customers' private communications
Dr Richard Clayton
'Illegal' ad system scrutinised
BT described it as "a small-scale technical test".
During the trials adverts were stripped out of web pages served up to BT customers and replaced with more targeted ads, if available.
If none was available, adverts for one of three charities were inserted.
The report also reveals that BT believes that a large scale deployment of Phorm will be "operationally challenging".
It projected that it would require as many as 300 servers to roll out for all BT customers and added that BT was "unable to find hosting accommodation that will enable a deployment of this model".
However, the BBC now understands that the technology behind Phorm has been updated and large-scale trials are much more feasible.
'Illegal trial'
Dr Clayton said the leaked report "clearly shows that back in 2006 BT illegally intercepted their customers' web traffic, and illegally processed their personal data".
He continued: "The BT author seems delighted that only 15-20 people noticed this was happening and looks forward to a new system that will be completely invisible.
"This isn't how we expect ISPs to treat their customers' private communications and since, not surprisingly, it's against the law of the land, we must now expect to see a prosecution."
He said that the BT report also noted that "communications regarding advertisement systems and information collection could lead to negative perception if not carefully handled".
"They seem to have failed in this aspect as well," he said.
A BT spokesman said: "The trial was completely anonymous and no personal information was stored or processed.
"BT sought expert legal advice before commencing the trial."
Yes, it's a little worrying. But then ISPs are meant to keep our browsing records for a few months, IIRC, in case of police investigations. And that's far more dangerous as it is literally logging page views and data accesses to individual users, wherease Phorm just seems to be dynamic advert replacement. And I think that most people just don't even register the presence of adverts really.